The 2015 experiment used an air-driven nonmagnetic rotor containing polycrystalline gadolinium, with magnetic shielding and an external fluxgate magnetometer. Air drive reduced motor backgrounds. Measurements at 297–305 K were above the Curie temperature, at rotation frequencies up to 1.5 kHz. Reversing airflow reversed rotation and the magnetic signal; an empty capsule showed no speed-dependent signal. The readout measured stray magnetic field; geometry converted it to magnetization. Sample temperature was checked immediately after stopping. Heating and the conversion model limit inference.[ref]
Figure 1. . Original functional layout, with simplified geometry. The arrows independently explain the sign expected for : positive axial angular velocity, negative axial magnetization, and positive axial stray magnetic field at an equatorial sensor. The air line indicates drive function. Dimensions and components follow the inspected experiment; this is neither its original figure nor measured data. Details.
An additional analysis check follows from rotation symmetry. For signed sensor output , separate
An ideal linear Barnett effect appears in the odd component; a fixed offset appears in the even component. This is a proposed diagnostic, not a claim about the paper's processing. A background correlated with direction can also be odd: reversal alone is insufficient. Empty-rotor checks, zero-speed readings, calibration of sensor polarity, and controlled temperature changes test different errors. Equatorial stray-field sign must also be converted to magnetization sign: for an axial magnetic dipole moment, the magnetic dipole field at its equator points opposite to that magnetic moment. The apparatus diagram makes this otherwise easy-to-miss sign change visible.
Dipolar flux-tube area 2026-10-05
Near the polar axis of a magnetic dipole field, . Conservation of magnetic flux in a flux tube consequently gives . A dipole magnetic-field line intersecting a sphere of radius at small polar angle obeys
This area is for one polar tube. The approximation requires ; the full magnetic dipole field does not remain a narrow polar tube at arbitrarily large radius.
Far outside a localized steady source of size , at distance , its multipole expansion starts with the magnetic dipole moment if that moment is nonzero. In vacuum, using SI units,
where is the vacuum permeability, , and the magnetic field is the curl of the magnetic vector potential. The magnetic dipole field falls as , and the magnetic vector potential as . The localized steady-current moment identities remove the putative term in the magnetic vector potential. No magnetic monopole is needed. If different current loops cancel the total magnetic dipole moment, a higher term of the multipole expansion supplies the leading distant magnetic field. [ref].
The approximation is not valid at the center of a finite current loop. For a circular current loop of radius and electric current , the exact on-axis magnetic field of a circular current loop and the distant approximation are
Their ratio is : at , the approximate magnetic field exceeds the exact magnetic field by about relative to the exact value. Near the source, retain its geometry rather than replacing it with a point source specified only by its magnetic dipole moment.
In magnetically channelled accretion, a strong magnetic field guides an accretion flow along flux tubes. The component of the Lorentz force density parallel to the magnetic field vanishes, so the longitudinal flow can be treated hydrodynamically while the field controls the transverse geometry. A magnetic dipole field near a neutron star channels matter toward small polar caps.
For a centred magnetic dipole moment pointing toward geographic south, the field at northern latitude has northward component and downward component . These follow by resolving the magnetic dipole field into local radial and meridional directions. The downward inclination is therefore , while the magnitude is . This ideal aligned-dipole model has no eastward component and does not capture actual geographic departures of the geomagnetic field.
Magnetic dipole moment Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A magnetic dipole moment is a vector that summarizes the strength and orientation of a localized magnetic source. For a planar current loop, it is the electric current times the vector area: . The right-hand rule fixes the unit normal vector : curl the fingers of the right hand along the conventional current, and the thumb points along . This single vector predicts both the distant magnetic dipole field and the turning effect of an imposed magnetic field.[ref]
The SI unit is ampere times square metre, , equivalently joule per tesla. A magnetic dipole moment is neither a magnetic field nor a magnetic monopole: a closed current loop can have a nonzero magnetic dipole moment while its net outward magnetic flux through any closed surface remains zero, as required by Gauss's law for magnetism.
For a localized, steady electric current density , the more general definition is
Here the cross product is integrated over the complete source, including return paths. Steadiness requires , and localization requires sufficiently rapid decay for the boundary terms to vanish. Under these assumptions the localized steady-current moment identities give : shifting the origin by changes the proposed magnetic dipole moment by . An isolated open wire segment does not satisfy these assumptions. [ref].
Take a wire segment on the axis, with source positions for , and positive electric current along . Observe at , where is the perpendicular distance to the wire's supporting line. Choose rightward and upward, so points out of the page. Then
Thus the magnetic field points into the page by the right-hand rule. The Biot-Savart law and an elementary antiderivative give
For an original worked example, choose , , , and . Use for these rounded calculations. Each endpoint contributes , so
These are calculated inputs and output, not laboratory data. The two endpoint angles measured from the perpendicular each have sine ; this recovers the equivalent endpoint-angle formula without depending on a diagram's angle-sign convention.
Figure 1.
Finite-wire Biot-Savart law: source geometry, orientation and the long-wire limit
. Original geometry for the segment and observation distance. The electric current is upward; the magnetic field at P points into the page. The right panel shows the calculated midpoint ratio versus half-length divided by distance, with the example marked at . Details.
For a segment centered on the perpendicular foot, , . Its magnetic field magnitude is
The limit gives , consistent with Ampère's circuital law for an infinite straight wire. In the example, and : the infinite-wire value overestimates the segment value by , or about of the segment value. For , the isolated segment contribution instead behaves as . The complete localized electrical circuit has a different far-field behavior: return-path contributions cancel this leading segment term, leaving a magnetic dipole field when its magnetic dipole moment is nonzero. Segment and whole-circuit limits must be distinguished.
The SI units check directly: has units , the tesla. The apparent divergence as is a failure of the thin-wire model near the conductor, not a prediction of infinite magnetic field inside a real wire. This calculation gives only this segment's contribution; include the return wires before comparing with an apparatus.
A uniformly charged solid sphere of total charge , radius and angular velocity has magnetic dipole moment
For a uniformly charged thin spherical shell the coefficient is instead of . At large distances the magnetic field is a magnetic dipole field, . Its angularly averaged magnitude and root mean square magnitude both scale as ; its angularly averaged vector is zero. Steady rotation of this axisymmetric charge distribution produces magnetostatics, not radiation.
The inner radius at which a stellar magnetic dipole field disrupts a surrounding accretion disk. In a free fall pressure-balance estimate with fixed aspect ratio , . Geometry and inflow structure change its numerical coefficient.
On-axis magnetic field of a circular current loop Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-18
A circular loop of radius carrying electric current has, on its axis,
where the sign of is fixed by the right-hand rule. At its centre, .
Put the loop in the plane, centered at the origin, with positive electric current counterclockwise when viewed from . The right-hand rule then gives the central magnetic field along . Parameterize source positions by the angle and observe at :
Here without bold type is the loop radius, whereas is the source-to-observer displacement. Their cross product is
The denominator is constant around the loop. The integrals of sine and cosine over a full turn vanish, while the axial contribution adds to . Substitution into the Biot-Savart law proves the on-axis formula. Symmetry cancels transverse components; it does not cancel the axial components.
For an original one-turn example in the same vacuum approximation, choose and . With ,
At , the source-to-observer distance is , so and . At , the magnetic field has the same magnitude and still points along . The point has crossed the loop plane, but the loop's electric current has not reversed. Reversing the electric current reverses the magnetic field on both sides.
Figure 1.
Circular-loop magnetic field: axial reinforcement and equal direction on both sides
. Original electric current loop schematic and normalized on-axis calculation. The left view looks from , with counterclockwise electric current and a central field directed toward the viewer. In the right panel, the arrows along the axis point toward even for ; the calculated points at have normalized field . No experimental data are plotted. Details.
For , a Taylor expansion gives : the center is a smooth maximum, with zero first derivative. For ,
This is the axial magnetic dipole field of magnetic dipole moment .[ref] A compact closed loop has an inverse-cube axial far field, in contrast to the inverse-distance field of the infinite straight wire. The SI units of the exact loop formula are , hence tesla.
For coincident turns carrying the same electric current, the superposition principle multiplies the ideal result by . A real coil has radial width and axial length: if those are not negligible, integrate or sum over its individual turns. This is why a single measured coil diameter and a turn count may not determine the full spatial magnetic field precisely. A collection of loops becomes a solenoid; integrating their axial contributions gives the on-axis magnetic field of a finite solenoid.
A highly conducting solar wind carries the Sun's magnetic field outward by magnetic flux freezing. This can open magnetic field lines that would form closed loops in a static dipole model. Beyond an opening radius , approximate the field as radial. Constancy of the magnetic flux in a fixed solid-angle flux tube gives the radial solar-wind magnetic flux law
which decays more slowly than the vacuum magnetic dipole field, proportional to .
For example, if the field becomes radial already near the solar radius , normalizing both estimates to the same field there gives
Thus a dipole estimate becomes of order , comparable to the stated hundredfold enhancement. More generally, matching dipolar decay inside to radial decay outside gives
This is a plausible scaling explanation, not a determination of the actual opening radius. The magnetic field need not be outward everywhere: opposite-polarity sectors can preserve zero net magnetic flux through a closed surface, consistent with Gauss's law for magnetism. The argument concerns the changed geometry of the field in a flowing plasma, rather than changing the dipole exponent by assumption.
Take for inward radial velocity, and assume a constant specific-heat ratio . The isentropic flow has and adiabatic sound speed . Steady spherical mass conservation and the radial Euler equation for fluid motion give
Eliminating the mass density derivative gives , or
Differentiating gives the corresponding sound speed equation:
At a smooth sonic point, . A finite derivative requires the numerator of the flow equation to vanish too. Thus
This regularity requirement concerns a smooth transonic branch, rather than an arbitrary singular solution reaching unit Mach number.
Integrating the momentum equation using the specific enthalpy yields the Bernoulli equation
For a finite positive mass accretion rate, its large-radius solution has
These expressions satisfy both the flow equations asymptotically and show and . In particular agrees with the first boxed equation. Combining the Bernoulli equation with sonic regularity additionally gives , so a finite positive sonic point occurs in the range identified below.
For the small-radius inward free fall branch, neglecting enthalpy against in the Bernoulli equation predicts . The continuity equation then fixes , and consequently . The neglected-to-leading ratio is
It tends to zero precisely when
This makes the assumed supersonic flow and leading free fall self-consistent. At equality, the ratio is of constant order rather than vanishing; above it, the proposed asymptotic balance fails. The isothermal limit also permits free fall, with logarithmic rather than power-law enthalpy.
For the stellar funnel, write the magnetic scalar potential as , where and . Its magnetic dipole field has and , so a magnetic-field-line equation is
The edge of the polar flux tube meets the stellar surface at . Thus, near the pole, , and its transverse radius is . This proves the dipolar flux-tube area law
Equivalently magnetic flux conservation gives and . The stipulated small cross section keeps the tube close to the polar axis, where its direction is approximately radial; the approximation is not valid all the way to arbitrarily large .
Outside the star the prescribed field is a gradient, hence and . Its Lorentz force density is therefore . The magnetic-pressure and magnetic-tension parts cancel in this exact current-free dipole. Field-aligned velocity also has , consistent with a steady prescribed field. The following calculation uses the narrow polar funnel approximation.
Now steady mass conservation reads . With , replace the spherical factor 2 by 3:
The Bernoulli equation is unchanged because the magnetic field supplies no work or force. On a gravity-dominated free fall branch, , but and . Hence
The same bound follows from regular transonic accretion in a power-law tube: and the reservoir-matched Bernoulli equation gives . The stellar surface cuts off the mathematical small- limit; the criterion refers to a funnel that becomes gravity dominated and crosses its sonic point before reaching that surface.
Choose an origin near the bounded loop and write for the source position. The magnetic vector potential and its far-field multipole expansion are
with the loop held fixed as . The first term integrates to zero since is closed. Define its oriented vector area by
The second equality is Stokes theorem, applied componentwise to any oriented spanning surface. In particular the vector area is independent of the choice of spanning surface. From , the matrix is antisymmetric, which gives . Hence
The orientation follows the current by the right-hand rule. For , taking the curl of this leading magnetic vector potential gives the magnetic dipole field
For a planar loop, is the signed area times the unit normal vector. For a nonplanar loop it is the oriented vector area, rather than the scalar area of an arbitrarily chosen surface.
Take to mean the magnitude of the inward radial velocity. In the Gaussian units used for the magnetic pressure, approximate the surface density of a disk by . The mass accretion rate and free-fall speed then give
At the magnetospheric truncation radius, balance the magnetic pressure of the magnetic dipole field with the specified ram pressure:
Thus
Discarding the convention-dependent numerical factor gives
The magnetic pressure grows inward as , faster than the ram pressure , so the field disrupts the flow inside this radius. The numerical coefficient depends on the vertical averaging and on treating the inflow as radial free fall, as stipulated here; a detailed thin disk boundary model need not have the same coefficient.
Align the polar axis with the magnetic dipole moment. The magnetic dipole field has
The magnetic-field-line equation gives , hence the dipole magnetic-field line is . Normalize the loaded bundle by its small surface angular radius at . Its boundary obeys
The dipolar flux-tube area for one polar cap is consequently
Equivalently, is constant by conservation of magnetic flux and near the axis. Two equal loaded caps double the total area. The scaling is independent of the normalization; if the loading angle is specified at another radius , use instead.
In the midplane, the vacuum magnetic dipole field has scale , while the result of part i gives . Ampère's law then gives the induced-field estimate
where numerical factors are immaterial in this dimensional analysis. Thus at
This is the light cylinder radius: rigid corotation would have . The nonrelativistic approximation and the assumed unmodified vacuum field therefore fail at the same scale, and a self-consistent pulsar magnetosphere must replace them.
For the aligned magnetic dipole field,
Since ,
The corotation velocity is . The current density is therefore the advected charge density,
Gauge freedom. The magnetic vector potential satisfies . The transformation
leaves unchanged because the curl of a gradient is zero. For time-dependent fields, transform the electric scalar potential as as well, so that is unchanged. The scalar must have the regularity and single-valuedness appropriate to the physical region and its boundary conditions. Local values of therefore depend on the gauge transformation.
Gauge and nonzero component. In the standard axisymmetric Coulomb gauge representative for the long-solenoid approximation,
The divergence vanishes since is independent of the azimuth. Inside, this agrees with the usual symmetric gauge representative . The Coulomb gauge condition alone does not force the other two components to vanish; the symmetry, regularity and customary boundary choice select this representative from the remaining gauge freedom.
Radial dependence. Write the interior magnetic field as , where for a vacuum solenoid of solenoid turn density . Its exterior magnetic field vanishes in the infinitely long idealization. Applying Stokes theorem to a coaxial circle gives . Therefore the Coulomb-gauge vector potential of a long solenoid is
It grows linearly inside, is continuous at , and decays as outside. Although its exterior curl is zero, its circulation is the enclosed magnetic flux . No regular single-valued gauge function removes it throughout the exterior while preserving this circulation.
Electric field of the rotating charged surface. For clarity retain absolute permittivity and permeability in the cylinder formulae; setting them to unity gives the rationalized-unit convention in the question. If the stated unity means relative material constants in SI, use instead. Assume prescribed charge densities in the laboratory frame and the nonrelativistic, steady-rotation model.
The axisymmetric surface charge is stationary as a distribution even while the material rotates. A Gaussian cylinder of length has enclosed charge zero for and for . Gauss's law therefore gives
The radial electric field jumps from zero to at the surface and then decays as . Its direction reverses for negative . The angular velocity does not enter this electric-field result for a specified surface charge.
Magnetic field of the volume-charged cylinder. A shell of radius and thickness has surface charge , azimuthal surface current , and the field of an infinite solenoid: inside that shell and zero outside it. At radius , only shells with contribute. Thus the magnetic field of a rotating charged solid cylinder is
With no applied background magnetic field, outside. The profile is parabolic, largest on the axis and zero at the boundary. The sign follows . As a check, the current density is , and Ampère's circuital law gives , as required.
Figure 1.
Radial profiles of the solenoid vector potential and the two charged-cylinder fields
. Details.
Electron impulse when the current is switched off. Choose positive so the initial magnetic flux is along . Faraday's law of induction gives, outside the solenoid,
For an Electron of electric charge , treat its position as fixed while the short pulse acts. The inductive impulse outside a switched solenoid is
Consequently the nonrelativistic final velocity is
The induced electric field circulates in the positive azimuthal direction while a positive flux decreases, so the Electron accelerates in the negative direction. Once the pulse has passed, there is no exterior field and it travels along the tangent at the impulse point, rather than continuing in a circular orbit. If the resulting momentum is relativistic, use instead. The sudden-switch result assumes negligible displacement during the pulse and the usual quasistatic electromagnetic induction approximation; “instantaneous” switching does not mean instantaneous propagation of fields to arbitrary distance.
One can check the sign using conserved canonical angular momentum: axial symmetry conserves . Initially , and finally , so .
Interferometric measurement at constant current. Use a coherent Electron beam split into two paths passing on opposite sides of a shielded long solenoid, then recombine them to form interference fringes. Keep the current constant during the passage and suppress leakage fields on the paths. In the Aharonov-Bohm effect, the phase difference due to the magnetic vector potential is the closed-loop integral
The overall sign reverses if the path orientation is reversed. The displacement in fringe periods is , so the measured fringe shift is linear in and repeats when
A gauge transformation adds a gradient whose closed-loop integral vanishes for a single-valued . Endpoint changes in Electron wavefunction phase cancel in the interference measurement. The measured Aharonov-Bohm phase is therefore gauge invariant: it determines the flux, or equivalently the circulation of . In the chosen Coulomb gauge this implies , but the experiment does not select or measure a unique local vector potential independently of gauge.
Far field of the rotating sphere. Interpret uniform charge as uniform volume charge of total , and take . The magnetic dipole moment of a rigidly rotating charge distribution is
Its axial component is . For a solid sphere, and , so
The magnetic field of a rotating charged spherical body is a static magnetic dipole field at large distances:
In particular, . Both the angular mean of the magnitude and its root mean square therefore scale as ; the latter is . The angular average of the vector is zero, which is different from average strength. Steady rotation leaves the charge and current distributions stationary, so this is magnetostatics, not a radiative field. If uniform charge instead means a thin spherical surface, replace the dipole moment by ; the angular pattern and scaling are unchanged.
Why the shape is immaterial far away. Partition an arbitrary small planar loop into small rectangular loops with the same oriented current. Currents on internal shared edges cancel, leaving only the original boundary. Their magnetic dipole moments add to , with the enclosed area. Far enough away, the leading fields add as dipoles at the same position. The general magnetic dipole field is
Higher spatial multipoles contain shape-dependent corrections. The axial and transverse results above are the special directions of this expression.
The aligned terrestrial model. Take the moment to point toward geographic south. At northern latitude , the magnetic dipole inclination versus latitude gives local northward and downward components
Using the specified and ,
The direction is geographic north and below horizontal, with no eastward component in this ideal model. These values use the latitude printed in the paper.